Czechia

Ljubljana/Ljubno ob Savinji – One day into the implementation of a decree that sets the public health rules for border crossing, the government has changed the decree to make it simpler for daily cross-border commuters and students, after complaints that the system was unsustainable due to insufficient testing capacity.

The deference shown to the Chinese officials by the party leader of the Czech Communists during a video conference last September is shocking.

However, based on the data presented this week by the government, it seems Poland won't even finish vaccinating the elderly by spring.

Ljubljana – The Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GZS) is celebrating its 170th anniversary, having been throughout dedicated to advocating its members’ interests and business success. Labelling 2020 as a year of special challenges, it is now looking ahead to 2021 as a year of opportunities for growth and development.

By way of contrast, Chinese pressure to stop Jaroslav Kubera visiting Taiwan took a more sinister turn when the Senate president keeled over from a heart attack. When his successor, Milos Vystrcil, embarked on the trip anyway in September, Beijing hoped to similarly scare Prague with threats of retaliation.

Bulgaria on Friday reacted with annoyance after Czechia and Slovakia on Thursday blocked EU moves to meet its demands concerning North Macedonia's start of EU accesion talks.

The Czech Republic is ready to begin its vaccination program as soon as that EU approval is complete, and the first doses should be made available during the Christmas holidays, Health Minister Jan Blatny boasted on Wednesday. Unfortunately, however, those doses will number no more than 10,000.

The number of air passengers "at least halved" in March, when the novel coronavirus peaked, the 27-member-bloc's statistical office said on June 16.

Restrictive measures, to stem the spread of the COVID-19, affected the aviation sector deeply, Eurostat said.

In March, versus the same month 2019, the largest decline was seen in Italy by 85%, or 11.9 million.

Firefighters are one of the groups in the forefront of the coronavirus crisis response. In many countries they are involved not only in their traditional role, but also in helping to assure other essential services to their communities such as driving ambulances, delivery of medicines and food, covid-19 testing or retrieval of the deceased.

In 2019, the year before COVID-19 containment measures were widely introduced by EU Member States, unemployment rates continued to vary widely across the NUTS 2 regions of the EU's 27 Member States.